Significant Digits For Monday, May 7, 2018

25 percent

A new report from the New York City Comptroller argues that Airbnb played a small but significant role in rising rents in New York. The report found that rents in a neighborhood go up by 1.58 percent as the share of units listed on Airbnb goes up by 1 percentage point. All told, rents in New York City rose by 25 percent between 2009 and 2016, and the comptroller argues Airbnb was responsible for 9.2 percent of that. [CNBC]

30 percent

That was the markup on books at three federal prisons that participated in a pilot program in which inmates were barred from getting books delivered except through a pricey prison-approved vendor. Federal prison system officials canceled the program last Thursday after questions were raised by The Washington Post. [The Washington Post]

323,690 subscribers

That was the number of subscribers to the Sunday print edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 2017, the fifth-highest total of any newspaper in the country. Keep in mind, the Twin Cities is only the 16th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. How is the Star Tribune punching so far above its weight? Not being bought and scrapped for parts by private equity buyers has helped. [Poynter]

$1.3 million

New Jersey plans to reinstate a tax credit for film and television production. The 20 percent tax credit was eliminated by then-Gov. Chris Christie because he didn’t like “Jersey Shore,” and its perceived negative reflection on the state. But that show’s tax credit may have paid for itself in meter fees alone: “Jersey Shore” got a $420,000 tax break in 2009, but parking meter fees in Seaside Heights (where the show was filmed) rose from $807,000 to $1.3 million from 2007 to 2010. [Variety]

4.5 million complaints

It’s not just you; there are way more robocalls now than there used to be, and they’re annoying the hell out of the nation as a whole. There were only 2.1 million complaints about robocalls made to the Federal Trade Commission in 2015, then 3.4 million in 2016 and 4.5 million in 2017. [The New York Times]